Indonesians and Other Foreign Students

During my time at Fresno State as an undergraduate in Math, I made friends with many Iranian students in the Engineering Department. While working at Fresno State, I overheard some students talking and wondered what language they were speaking. At first, I thought it might be Japanese, but it turned out to be Indonesian.

At first, I had some trouble understanding their accent. One cheeky guy gave me some words to tell one of the girls in the Computer Science Department, and I knew better than to trust him. He told me to say, “Saya cinta padamu” which meant, “I love you.” For all I knew, it could have been something worse, and I wanted to keep my job and reputation and not lose the trust of all Indonesian ladies around the world as word could travel fast.

A Close Friendship with Sari

Over time, I did become close to one young Indonesian woman. Sari was the first woman outside my culture and nationality I had fallen for. And while I helped her with her Turbo Pascal programming, we also worked on our taxes together, and she brought over her taxes and senior project proposal together once so we could work on things together.

A few days later, she called me on the phone and sounded upset. “Hallo Dunn, have you seen my peddopoesol?” Puzzled, I paused. She said, “My peddopoesol.” I paused again not having a clue what she was saying. “Dunn, have you seen my senior peddoject peddopoesol?” Ah, your senior project proposal. “Yes, Dunn, have you seen my senior peddoject peddoposol?”

I looked and found it together with the tax paperwork, and all was well. And I would fall very much in love with this young woman. However, her father was a doctor and wanted her to marry an Indonesian doctor, and she did marry a very fine Indonesian doctor with a heart of gold. They had some beautiful children together who grew up to be quite brilliant young adults.

Indonesian Church and Indonesian Life

We had three Indonesian churches in Fresno, and I ended up going to a different church from Sari’s. At first, I thought I was just visiting, but the people were so loving and sincere in their worship, and they challenged me to grow in character, so I stayed a little while–about 35 years.

I met Christopher Chan, a Malaysian student who attended Indonesian Full Gospel Fellowship and led a Bible study there. We got into a discussion about speaking in tongues, and just as I was about to pull out my set of Bible proof-texts to prove that tongues was not what he thought they were, he brought up those verses himself and left me solidly proven wrong. And yet he did it with such deep kindness, humility, and sincerity, that I was left challenged to the core of my being.

I finally believed, but I could not speak in tongues. I could fake it. I could do the thing that some people said to do, and that was to let it happen, start making noises and just let it flow into tongues, but my conscience would not allow me to do that. It felt wrong–fake.

So, in church, while everyone else was singing and praising God with hands lifted up, and while they were singing in the spirit in tongues, I asked God why I could not do that. And God seemed to impress upon me speaking to me not in words, but just in revelation to my mind as my conscience might do in some situations. And it seems as if he was saying this: “Dan, look around. What do you see?” “They’re singing.” “What else?” “They’re lifting their hands in praise.” “Dan, why aren’t you doing that?” “Lord, I don’t want to make a seen then blow it and sin and bring dishonor to Your name.” “Dan, aren’t you already dishonoring me by refusing to trust and obey me? When will you start?”

I surrendered, raised my hands, prayed, and sang and it flowed into tongues. And over time I would become an intercessor being led by God what to pray for and getting answers.